IDA Action Alert

IDA to Reveal Explosive New Evidence of Government Cover-Up and Misuse of Millions in Taxpayer Funds

Washington, DC (March 20, 2000) – In Congressional testimony scheduled for Tuesday, March 21, In Defense of Animals (IDA) will reveal explosive new evidence that will blow the lid off the escalating scandal of the National Institutes of Health and its continued support for The Coulston Foundation, an embattled primate testing lab in New Mexico. IDA will testify before the Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies, House Committee on Appropriations, at 2:00 p.m. in room 2358, Rayburn House Office Building.

"Our testimony will have some very interesting surprises for Coulston and the NIH," said IDA president Elliot Katz, DVM. "Once and for all, we will bring accountability to this criminally negligent facility and the federal agency that continues to fund it."

"In light of this testimony, Congress should immediately compel NIH to terminate the millions of dollars in illegal federal subsidies that are keeping this lab afloat," Katz said.

IDA has investigated Coulston and the NIH for five years. Its testimony will be based on "devastating evidence" the group has accumulated from the NIH’s own internal documents as well as information provided to IDA by its network of whistleblowers. The testimony will focus on the misuse of millions of taxpayer dollars as well as the cover-up and deceptions on the part of both the NIH and Coulston, IDA said.

The Coulston Foundation maintains the world’s largest colony of captive chimpanzees for testing and experimentation. The lab is reeling after an unprecedented three sets of formal charges by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal Animal Welfare Act violations for negligent chimpanzee deaths, and from a federal order that prevents it from initiating any new studies under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. The latter came after the FDA found hundreds of data integrity and human safety violations at the lab last August. The foundation is also currently facing another official USDA investigation (the seventh in as many years) for more chimpanzee deaths.